An Analysis of Risk Management in the Crossrail Engineering Project

This report provides a detailed analysis of the risk management strategies implemented in the Crossrail project, a significant civil engineering undertaking in London. The report begins with an introduction to risk management principles, emphasizing the importance of identifying, evaluating, and mitigating risks to ensure project success. It then provides background information on the Crossrail project, highlighting its scale, objectives, and the technologies employed, such as BIM. The core of the report examines the Management of Risk (MOR) framework used in the project, breaking it down into five key steps: risk identification, analysis, ranking, treatment, and monitoring/reviewing. Each step is explored in detail, with examples from the Crossrail project. The analysis section focuses on the specific risks encountered, including those related to project management, technological complexities (especially BIM), and interoperability challenges. The report also discusses the risk assessment processes, the use of risk rating tables, and the strategies used for risk mitigation and control. The report concludes by summarizing the findings and emphasizing the significance of proactive risk management in large-scale construction projects. The report references key literature on risk management and project management principles.

RISK MANAGEMENT

TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
BACKGROUND.............................................................................................................................1
ANALYSIS......................................................................................................................................4
Risk Analysis and management...................................................................................................4
Risk identification........................................................................................................................5
Risk Assessment..........................................................................................................................5
Response Planning and implementation......................................................................................6
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS........................................................................................................6
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................8
REFERENCES..............................................................................................................................10

INTRODUCTION
Risk is uncertain which always have probability Risk Management is the identification,
evaluation and prioritize of risk followed by coordinated and economical application of resources
to minimise, monitor and control the probability or impact of unfortunate events or to maximise
the regionalisation of opportunities. It is the practices of determining in advance about the
potential risk (Hillson and Murray-Webster, 2017). It is very important for any task, project or
organisation to evaluate the risk in advance so that they can respond whenever it will be arise.
Further, risk are undesirable to the extent that they do not bring opportunity for the company or
project. The success of the project is depends to contributed by the effective risk management.
All the practices and methods are encompasses by the management of risk that have been
developed so far to control events sensitised to influence negatively the revenues as well as net
worth of the company or project.
This present report is context to the Crossrail case study as it is one of the famous
engineering project held in London, United Kingdom. This report will discuss the Management
Of Risk (MOR) model that helps in evaluating of risk in systematic manner. Further, report will
also discuss on the basis of analysis that was carried out by the project manager.
BACKGROUND
CROSSRAIL: A CASE STUDY
Crossrail, is the project that is recognised as one of the biggest civil engineering project
held in London, United Kingdom. The project is about to build under central London to link
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Illustration 1: Overview of Crossrail
(Source: Overview of Crossrail, 2018)

existing Network Rail Lines to the east and west of the capital. The location of the project is
London and the value is £14.35 billion. The contacts used are ECC, PSC and FC and it was
started in 2009 and finished in 2018. The employer of this project is Crossrail Limited and the
Project manager was Benchtel. When it opens in 2018, it renders rail services from Maidenhead
and Heathrow in the west to Shenfield and Abbey Wood in the east. The important remodelling
work is required to the outlying the infrastructure of rail network and stations on city's both side.
The most modifier efforts of construction is surrounded under new central London over 21
Kilometres of new twin tunnels (Overview of Crossrail, 2018).
The main purpose of this project is to raise the capacity of rail surface area by 10 percent
and must lead to development, growth as well as regeneration. The project of Crossrail has also
deliverer the superior capacity fast straightly link between City of London, West end of London
and Heathrow airport and Canary What business area to the east. The project is not only about
the crossrail but it is important to appreciate BMI as it has great contribution. BMI is only 3D
models and not only about the building but it is all about the project infrastructure. BMI and
Crossrail has worked in collaboration as collaboration is the base of UK government.
Management Of Risk Framework:
The framework for actions which are required to be taken is called risk management
process, it is also called route map for risk management. It mainly helps an organization to
identify, monitor, control or eliminate any kind of risk associated with the organization or the
project on which they are working. Crossrail project is one of the biggest project in Europe and
they have faced many types of risks (Larson and Gray, 2017). So, in order to make the project
successful, project manager has prepared the risk management matrix and take proper actions
accordingly. In this framework, there are five steps that project manager has follows for
systematic management of risk are as follows-
Step 1: Identification Of Risk: This is the first step that means to identification of risk that
business has faced operating in the business environment. Project manager also defined the
probability of risk along its impact in the operations, functions as well as outcomes of the
research (Giannakis and Papadopoulos, 2016). In this stage, project manager start preparing the
risk register. By preparing the risk resister, it becomes visible to every stakeholder especially
staff members within organisation with the aces to the system. Crossrail project has their own
risk management team who works on their own risk management tool. This tool helps them to
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identify all kinds of external risk associated with the project and all kinds of internal risk such as
budget exceed, schedule and many more are done manually by the risk management team of the
project.
Step 2: Analyse the Risk: Once the risk is identified, project manager start evaluating the
impact of risk such as high/low/medium as well as its potential impact. Project manager also start
understanding the nature, scope and cause of risk. Deep evaluation is performed under these
stages. This risk analysis within the crossrail project is done with the help of risk register which
helps them to identify priority of risk associated with the project.
Step 3: Rank the Risk: In this stage, project manager starts identifying the magnitude of risk
that is the combination of probability and consequences by prioritizing and ranking the risk as
per its seriousness (Aven, 2016). Project Manager take decision either the hazard is acceptable or
it is sincere adequate to security the attention. Risk management team of crossrail project analyse
the risk identified in risk register and rank them based on their priority and then with the help of
quantitative risk assessment technique they identify the overall cost of resolving the risk
associated with the risk.
Step 4: Treat the Risk: In this stage all the risk identified and evaluated is needed to be
eliminated or reduced as much as possible. For this various subject experts are assigned different
kinds of risk as their area of expertise. After this regular meetings are conducted within a fixed
interval of time where all the stakeholders talk about the issues that are being faced by them. In
these meeting issues are identified and solution to their issues are provided to them or is being
communicated to them from the system. Discussion regarding the risk or solution to eliminate or
reduce risk can either be given within the meeting or can be given through system (Hazır, 2015).
The top management team keeps an eye on all the solution and progress of the project and
checks whether the provided solution is within their budget and schedule or not and based on this
analysis final risk management solution is provided to all the stakeholders involved in the
project.
Step 5: Risk Monitoring and Reviewing: In this stage all the present risks are monitored and
evaluated as all the risks cannot be eliminated, for example: market and environment risk. Such
kinds of risk are always needed to be reviewed and monitored within a fixed interval of time. All
the professionals involved in the project need to keep a close eye on such risk it can affect the
entire project and can result in its failure, so monitoring of these risks is important. If there is any
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change within these risk then whole project team should be informed and immediate actions
should be taken (Zou, Kiviniemi and Jones, 2017). Such kind of environment and market risk
can also be monitored and reviewed with the help of computer systems as well so that continuity
of the project or task can be maintained.
ANALYSIS
Crossrail is one of the most famous and biggest construction project of Europe that is
being developed in London, England. This project is using various kinds of latest technologies
like BIM (Building Information modelling), Artificial Intelligence (AI). BIM technology has
helped many civil construction project and is being used most frequently (Black., 2017). But
there are various kinds of risk associated with this project due to usage of such kind of advance
technologies like BIM. It is extremely important to identify all the risks associated with with is
project as those risks can become one of the main reason for failure of this project. In other
words risk management is the main critical factor which plays a vital role in success of a project.
This risk management should be done continuously from the starting of the project till the end as
it helps supports the delivery of the project, provide assurance to both internal and external
stakeholders and also helps in decision making. These risk can increase challenges for this
Crossrail construction project such as: project management challenges, increasing complexity
and many more (Smith and et.al., 2015). So, in order to reduce such risks and challenges
Analysis of this project is quite important to be done and for this risk identification, analysis,
assessment, planning and implementation will be done.
Risk Analysis and management
Risk management and analysis within Crossrail project was done since starting of the
project using a standard approach that is being used in most of the major projects, like:
 Project's specific procedures and processes were developed using stability configured risk
tool.
 Risk ownership was determined by determining which person was placed where to
mitigate the risk.
 Particular risk management team was made to manage processes and procedures in order
to ensure compliance and reduce risk.
 Regular quantification of risk was done within a fixed interval of time.
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Risk management included risk identification and assessment to risk mitigation and control. This
was a set procedure where risk was identified, then assessed and then mitigation of new and
emerging risk was done (Lawrence and Black, 2019). Throughout this process the main focus of
risk management was Key risk that goes on throughout the process.
Other than risk management risk analysis was also done (both qualitative and quantitative
risk analysis) This risk analysis helped in measuring risk level and exposure within the crossrail
project. The risk analysis tool used in the project helped in identifying the overall cost required
for mitigating the risk and how it would affect the overall schedule of the project.
Risk identification
Risk identification is a process which helps in determining all kinds of risk associated
with the project that can prevent a project from achieving its objectives. It is one of the most
basic step of risk management process which helps in identifying all kinds of risk associated with
the project. One of the most basic risk identified in cross rail project was ownership of the
database, risk in design integration project, detection of collision, interruption in internal
communication within the project team. For eliminating these risk after their identification,
advanced technologies such as Artificial technology, BIM technology and internet of things were
used for the crossrail project. Usage of these technologies helped in removing or controlling such
risk associated with the project. However this usage of BIM technology with the project also
increased other risk. One of the main risk identified with usage of BIM technology was its
interoperability i.e. lack of experts to handle and operate BIM technology. Lack of experts
caused inaccuracy in results, disagreements and various kinds of legal issues. Many times
initially information was also lost while exchanging or handling different formats of data and it
was adverse while exchanging information (Barsam, Harris and Hooper, 2017). Another risk that
was faced by the the stakeholders initially due to BIM technology usage was legal issues i.e. due
to usage of BIM technology risk of unsettled legal framework increased.
Risk Assessment
Risk assessment can be defined as the method or process through which hazard or risk
are identified which can increase the potential harm for the project or for the organization. In this
risk association with hazard is analysed and evaluated. This risk assessment is done on the basis
of risk rating table in which all the risk identified are are rated in five categories which are
(immediately dangerous, high risk, medium risk, low risk, very low risk). All the risk identified
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within crossrail were also segregated as per risk rating table. This helped the organization to
identify all the risk that needed immediate attention. For this they used two types of risk
assessment techniques which are qualitative risk assessment and quantitative risk assessment
techniques (Boateng, Chen and Ogunlana., 2016). Quantitative risk assessment technique helped
them to focus on management of uncertainty and risk which helped them to identify outrun cost
of the project in order to eliminate or reduce the risk. With the help of quantitative risk
assessment cost they were able to anticipate final crossrail direct cost and were able to integrate
the risk management cost with overall cost of the project. Qualitative risk assessment technique
helped them to quantify the risk associated with the project as per the seriousness of the risk
within the project.
Response Planning and implementation
After risk assessment response planning is done i.e. strategies are made so that identified
risk can be removed without impacting the overall project. In other words response planning
helps in eliminating or reducing threats or risk associated with the project so that opportunities
for the project can be increased. Based on the risk response strategies and planning is done on the
basis of risk response (Yucelgazi and Yitmen, 2018). After development of risk response
strategy implementation of risk response is done in order to mitigate. Reduce or avoid risk so
that it doesn't turn into a hindrance in completion of the project. For crossrail project as response
planning was with the help of risk register which helped in documenting all kinds of identified
risk and measures to reduce the risk. Risk register helped them to document all the risk
associated with their project and measures through which it can be mitigated. This helped them
to reduce risk exposure within their crossrail project. Risk response process is carried out
throughout the project and is being used in this crossrail project since the starting of the project
(Baxter, 2016). Risk management team of the crossrail project used to do response planning and
implementation of risk within a fixed interval of time.
DISCUSSION OF FINDINGS
The risk management process used by Crossrail project was quite effective as it helped
them to minimize all the risk associated with their project. The risk management process used
within the project helped them in reduction of risk such as badly managed data or unmanaged
data, helped in increasing efficiency of the workforce which was mainly due to implementation
of spatial technology like BIM (Choudhary, 2018). Crossrail project M-o-R was integrated with
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health and safety risk as well. This integration made this crossrail project risk management
completely different from other railway projects where most of the time business risk model was
completely different from safety risk project. The risk management plan adopted by crossrail
project was so perfectly implemented that it covered all kinds of risk associated with it such as:
health and safety risk, quality risk, business risk like delivery and funding risk, logistics and
interface risk, design and engineering risk, environmental risk, security risk like data hacking or
fraud, and business community risk (Tender and et.al., 2017). Crossrail project's approach to risk
management was set and followed according to the risk management framework that mainly
focused on four key areas that are: risk management policy, risk management plan, quantitative
and qualitative risk assessment and risk management procedure. All the four processes helped
them to manage risk throughout the project accurately.
Risk management policy helped ensuring visible, legal and consistent part of the project.
In order to deliver successful crossrail project it was important to manage all kinds of uncertainty
and risks as they were accountable for delivering complete knowledgable and quality railway for
future. So, it was important for them to implement risk management plan by adopting best
practises and policies in identification, evaluating and managing risk (Li, Zhang and Suo, 2019).
For smooth running of the project without any risk or hindrance a risk management plan was
developed which was mainly handled by the risk management team. This team documented all
kind of risk identified and segregated them on the basis of their occurrence and priority level of
the risk. This helped them to identify what kind of risk is occurring frequently and what kind of
risk are of high priority which can work as a hindrance in the completion of the project. This
helped them to identify and prioritize all the identified risks, hazards within the project so that
necessary changes can be done or strategies to eliminate such risks can be made that are within
the budget and can be solved within the schedule. For this a standard risk management procedure
is defined which consist of seven steps which are: planning, identification, assessment, response,
review, reporting and monitoring. In which the main steps are identify, assess and respond
(Tender and et.al., 2017). In this first of all a risk document plan is developed where all kind of
risk are listed as per their priority, then who will carry out that risk is identified and when they
will focus on that risk is identified as per the scope and complexity of the project. Then in next
step all the high priority risk are identified that can affect the main objective of the project. In
this risk identification involvement of relevant party in order to eliminate risk, cause, effect and
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hindrance. After identification of risk, risk assessment is done in which severity of risk is
identified so that based on this risk mitigation planning is done (Masood and et.al., 2016). After
assessment each risk is responded so that for each and every risk can be associated with a level
of mitigation. Based on the level of mitigation, control measures can be taken in order to remove,
terminate or transfer risk by taking appropriate action. This is also done with the help of
quantitative risk assessment technique. Then, Review of risks is done on regular basis which
helps them to ensure that the risk has permanently been taken care of and all the risk related data
is reliable and accurate. After reviewing reporting of the risk is done where a report is made and
all the investors are assured that the risk has been managed appropriately. Lastly, monitoring of
the risk is done where continuous monitoring of risk is done. In this way crossrail project
manages all of their risk with the help of a proper risk management procedure. This procedure is
carried out throughout the project from its starting to the completion and with this continuous
monitoring of the risk is done so that if any high priority risk occurs then it can be taken care of
immediately (Chapman, 2016). this helps them to manage all the risk without affecting their
overall budget and schedule of the project i.e. risk can be mitigated or its result can be reduced or
controlled without affecting budget and coast of the crossrail project.
CONCLUSION
From the above assignment it has been summarized that risk management is one of the
most important and crucial part in any project as it can help in reducing impact of unfortunate
events and increase opportunities for the project. Risk management in large projects such as
crossrail plays a vital role in these kind of project one risk can affect complete progress of the
project, so in such kind of large projects risk management is one of the most important part that
should be paid attention within a fixed interval of time. Crossrail is one of the most famous and
largest project of Europe held in Europe. They have been using management of Risk (MOR)
model to evaluate risk in an adequate manner. It has been analysed that the five steps involved in
MOR model are crucial to eliminate or control risk within the project. This model helps in
identifying, assessing, evaluating, managing, controlling and eliminating risk within the projects.
It has also been analysed that in order to reduce number of identified risk within crossrail project
they had started using advanced technologies like BIM (Building information modelling), AI
(Artificial intelligence) and internet of things. Crossrail project risk management plan consist of
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four steps which are: risk identification, risk assessment, risk response planning and
implementation.
It has also been observed that crossrail project uses various kind of risk management
tools that helps them in identifying risk, categorizing them on the basis of their severity they are
analysed or evaluated. All the identified risk are segregated on the basis of risk rating and then
one the basis of this with the help of Quantitative risk assessment technique uncertainty is
identified, risk associated with the project is quantified according to their priority/seriousness
and outrun cost of the project is managed and calculated. It has been observed that this
assessment of risk helps in making strategies which helps in reducing the overall impact of the
project. This risk management process helps crossrail to continuously monitor the risk or any
kind of uncertainty associated with the project that can work as a hindrance in completion of the
project or in achieving the objectives of the project. For this they have made a separate risk
management team that continuously monitors and identified any kind of risk that can impact the
project in different ways.
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